Committee
Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee 11 March 2021
11 Mar 2021 · S5 · Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee
Item of business
Cultural Sector (Impact of Covid-19)
Isabel Davis
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It is great to know that you are an old friend of Lynda Myles, who remains one of the leading lights in the Scottish festivals. Her days at the Edinburgh international film festival are still talked about with great fondness as the halcyon days of celebrations of film. You are quite right. Scotland has always shown off its many colours in many films. Locations are a particular strength for us and always have been. Even in the past year, we have seen first-time features such as “The Origin” shooting in Wester Ross. We have seen “Tetris”, which is a big finance show starring Taron Egerton, produced by Gillian Berrie, repurpose Scotland for all sorts of different countries. We are an incredibly versatile, ineffably beautiful country that everyone would like to come and shoot in. We are very friendly to production. That is a historical strength but, exactly as you say, it is the studio element of those large productions that anchors the majority of spend, because the production base tends to be where the crew and the key creatives come from. That absolutely is behind our push to develop more studio space. I will pause for a moment on the success of Bath Road, which is establishing a facility on the east coast for the first time. Through “The Rig” being established there, the crewing-up that has happened has allowed us to map where crew can be found in Edinburgh. That has been one of the takeaways for us on the screen side, interestingly, in tandem with the hardship fund: it has shown us how many people came home once we had the production shutdown. Scotland’s crew depth is probably deeper than it might be in any other given year, because so many of our people are going where the work is. They came back during the pandemic and they have stayed, because the quality of jobs now available, through the infrastructure having been provided, allows them to build their lives here again. We have seen that even in the course of the past 12 months on the east coast. Of course, we can look to Wardpark Studios, which is a great success story of how the vision to build a space has a huge impact on opportunities for local people. The fantastic efforts of the production teams at Wardpark, supported by Screen Scotland and Creative Scotland, have, over time, trained people up in very specialised areas and in careers that, prior to that facility being there, they could not possibly have accessed. You are absolutely right that there is a need for a range of facilities. We are stronger for having a variety of them and more of them. The more that we can build critical mass, the more that benefits the local crew and the more that benefits incoming production. Once they have established that a space is available, the very next question is, “How is your crew availability?” The two things work absolutely hand in hand. This comes back to the point about skills and developing a crew base around those facilities. Do we need more? We could absolutely absorb more. The business is growing exponentially. The British Film Institute recently published UK-wide figures for production spend in film and high-end television for 2020, a year in which there was a complete production shutdown for several months, and then a slow return as issues around underwriting the costs of Covid and the cost of stops if Covid events occurred had to be sorted out. In fact, production spend in 2020 was £2.84 billion overall in the UK, which was down by only 21 per cent. Imagine if the pandemic had not happened; we would have seen huge growth. That is certainly our experience in Scotland, and it has been reflected by the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union’s impression that we are as busy as we have ever been, so the opportunity to bring jobs into our sphere is something that we are very much alive to. I mentioned our skills strategy and the investment that we are looking to put in and are looking to others to help us find. It goes hand in hand with initiatives that allow us to convert people from other industries that are not doing so well in these times. Theatre is an obvious one, theatre technicians being able to come across into film and TV with, for example, the help of the national transition training fund. That has been most useful to us. Even from construction or rigging, there are all sorts of ways in which people can enter our business. We certainly see the role of infrastructure in building that. A note of caution is that there are certain conditions for a studio. As well as a building that is large enough and that has decent sight lines, is robust enough and has a degree of soundproofing, it must have other factors attaching to it, such as proximity to or the facility to travel to international airports, and infrastructure such as hotels, restaurants and so forth. We are in a pretty constant search for new buildings or buildings that could be repurposed. We are very happy to look and give our expert advice. When I say “our”, I mean the team’s advice. We have some brilliant people, including our head of screen commission, who is extremely well versed in assessing buildings. We can also bring in external expertise to the task of assessing the feasibility of a building becoming a studio. We are very open to it. We think that there is more that can be done.
In the same item of business
The Convener (Joan McAlpine)
SNP
Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to the ninth meeting in 2021 of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee. We have received apologies ...
Iain Munro (Creative Scotland)
Thank you, convener, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to be able to give evidence to the committee this morning. I realise that this is the last pu...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you very much. As you noted, this is likely to be our final committee meeting of the parliamentary session. It will certainly be the last committee mee...
Iain Munro
In the early weeks and months of the pandemic, we internally swung in those early moves to provide the initial support. As I noted in my opening remarks, tha...
The Convener
SNP
Thanks very much. That is helpful. You talked about how individuals in Scotland get funding that individuals in the rest of the UK do not get. I note that, a...
Iain Munro
There was quite a lot wrapped up in your questions; I will try to steer my way through them. I agree that the issues are all important. I will address the ...
The Convener
SNP
Thanks very much. I will come back to some of those issues later. I will hand over to Claire Baker MSP.
Claire Baker (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Lab
Good morning to Iain Munro and Isabel Davis. I have met Iain during the process—I have some questions for you, Iain. You gave a helpful introduction to how...
Iain Munro
Again, there was a lot wrapped up in your questions. I will try to make sure that I cover everything. The vast majority of funds, including the culture org...
Claire Baker
Lab
Thank you. That is helpful. You mentioned that one of the purposes of the funds was to protect jobs, which is also one of the purposes of the theatre recov...
Iain Munro
Your question about the unions is an important one. Part of the change that was under way for Creative Scotland pre-pandemic was about how we move to open ou...
Claire Baker
Lab
I appreciate how challenging this is. Does the data tell you how many jobs have been lost and how many redundancies there have been, or does it just say how ...
Iain Munro
That data does not tell us that, although a sense of loss of income and loss of employment opportunities is emerging from the sector survey, which is also co...
The Convener
SNP
This is all absolutely fascinating stuff, Mr Munro, but I ask you to keep your answers a bit shorter. A lot of members want to ask you questions and I want t...
Ross Greer (West Scotland) (Green)
Green
I have a couple of questions, primarily focused on screen. I will address them to Isabel Davis in the first instance, but some of them probably cut across wi...
Isabel Davis (Creative Scotland)
No, you will not find that document. As Iain Munro has pointed out, and as we all know, this year has been about getting our sleeves rolled up, getting all h...
Ross Greer
Green
Iain Munro wants to come in, I believe.
Iain Munro
Yes, very briefly. I think that you pointed to it, but the annual report and accounts, and the annual review for Creative Scotland, include sections specific...
Ross Greer
Green
Yes, thanks. I have the annual report in front of me, although I could not find the annual review. The Creative Scotland website annual review section goes u...
Isabel Davis
You might be aware that we have now, happily, almost entirely restructured Screen Scotland and we have individual teams—they work together, of course—across ...
Ross Greer
Green
I am conscious of the time, although this is very interesting and, in general, I am very pleased with the progress that has been made, because this has been ...
Isabel Davis
I would like to signal that we are now in a position whereby each of the component parts of what it will take for the screen industry to achieve success can ...
Ross Greer
Green
Fantastic. Thank you very much.
Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
SNP
I will focus on some of the practical elements around culture, not least because if anyone was asked to describe my engagement with culture more generally, t...
Isabel Davis
It is great to know that you are an old friend of Lynda Myles, who remains one of the leading lights in the Scottish festivals. Her days at the Edinburgh int...
Stewart Stevenson
SNP
Thank you very much for that. I should not overplay my relationship with Lynda Myles. I was at the biggest school in Scotland—our year was nearly 500 people—...
Isabel Davis
It is such a fast-growing industry that the gaps are everywhere. That is a very good question, and I think the answer is “all of the above” if we are to succ...
Jamie Halcro Johnston (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Con
The question I was going to ask was the one that Stewart Stevenson has just covered. I will go back to something that I think has been covered slightly. I re...
Iain Munro
You raise an important point. I will say up front that we have a keen eye to understanding the support that we are able to provide in and alongside the suppo...
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Con
Thanks. Do you want to come in on that, Isabel?